UNESCO World Capital of Architecture

Architecture is a celebration – in Copenhagen more than anywhere else

For the entire year of 2023, Copenhagen is the World Architecture Capital. This temporary status, created by a joint UNESCO/UIA committee, designates a paragon city in sustainable development. Where better than the capital of Denmark?

The World Architecture Capital is a triennial celebration of a specific city around the world, focusing on architecture as a way to underscore and demonstrate the crucial role that architecture and culture plays in sustainable urban development. It is still a young event: only one city, Rio de Janeiro, has been awarded this title to date.

The event offers a chance to come together as workers of the built environment and exchange ideas and thinking about our practice. Architecture shouldn’t solely be considered as a means to an end, but as a field in itself, in tune and in sync with the world and its evolutions.

Copenhagen, the transitional city

Dominique Perrault

Architect & President of the joint committee UNESCO-UIA for the World

Capital of Architecture

At the seashore of Copenhagen there sits a tiny mermaid staring longingly at the sea. Not human yet, not fully sea life anymore, she is a creature of the strand; an intermediary figure. A city could not choose a better icon to represent it, for its own existence is also always in transition. Never a finished oeuvre, the city is always becoming something else, housing more and more diverse types and generations of people as time passes.

Copenhagen is a great example of this. Rebuilt following the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and significantly redeveloped via the 1947 Finger Plan strategy, a planning directive that linked road and rail networks and introduced wedges of green space between them, the city has made and remade itself over time. Refocused to prioritise public transport and the preservation of natural green spaces, banning dense development outside of the close vicinity of a train station, its policies remain relevant given today’s transport policies and the significant global challenge to reduce our dependence on fossilfuel powered vehicles. The transitions within the city have been powered by the will of Copenhagen’s citizens and their own vision of a desirable future, as well as the accuracy of the perception of city designers.

City-making and Copenhagenization

From the internationally-recognised works of Bjarke Ingels or Jørn Utzon to the urban works of Jan Gehl, Copenhagen’s architecture has also been influential internationally in the world of city-making. The verb Copenhagenization has become a symbol of the spread of cycling in cities, with a global influence revolving around a peculiar understanding of public spaces and their importance in city making. Cities as diverse as Mexico City and New York City have benefitted from its influence.

The World Capital of Architecture is a celebration of this specific heritage and current state, and is celebrated through numerous events such as the first permanent exhibition of Danish Architecture at the Danish Architecture Center, and multiple experimental architecture pavillons around the city, culimating in the influential UIA conference.